Drawing Near to the Poor–Sweet Tweets for 12/05/14

I was praying about this when I read Pope Francis’ tweet from earlier this week. In it, he challenged me, “the Church is called to draw near to every person, beginning with the poorest and those who suffer.”

I was praying about it when I read on Facebook about a pastor who had impersonated a homeless man, and when I read a clarification of that story on Snopes. I asked myself why it is so easy to hit “like” on an inspirational post on Facebook and then drive past a homeless person in my community without even a glance in their direction.

Then I asked myself about the people I know who are “poor” but have four walls around them and a roof over their head. The addicts, those trapped in abusive marriages or struggling just to keep their checkbook balanced every month. I was starting to feel a major sense of anxiety come on, when suddenly I re-read the tweet.

The papal tweet doesn’t say, “Solve poverty, Lisa”. It invites me, as a member of the Body of Christ, to “draw near to the poor”.

OFFICIAL HYMN for Year of the Consecrated Life: Wake the world with dawning joy – (Steven Warner composer) ow.ly/Fq4m0

John Clem, O.F.S.

John Clem, O.F.S is the Director and Media Minister at Catholic Web Services (http://catholicws.com/). John is a professed member of the Secular Franciscan Order, and loves to share his talents in faith, technology, and journalism in service to the church. John also writes a blog entitled Call To Holiness (http://www.calltoholiness.us/). Follow John on Twitter at @Catholicwebs, on Facebook and at Google+.